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SYNC System Thread

331K views 525 replies 200 participants last post by  double b 
#1 ·
#75 ·
I noticed the calmer and more natural you talk the better the system works. When I use to try to pronounce each word perfectly is when I had my most trouble. My suggestion is speak in a normal tone of voice and do not try to speak to her as if you were speaking to some one that is new to the English language.
 
#79 ·
Let's face facts... MFT and the whole system is a JOKE.. It works SOME of the time only.. It's the quirkiest system in ANY car built today.. Frustrating as all hell. I'd NEVER buy a Ford again unless they FIX this and fix it right. It works 50 per cent of the time AT BEST!
It's 2012 FORD! Get it right! AND.. where's the so called promised fix for this crap????
 
#81 ·
Had I done more research, I'de done without the MFT. I really wanted it cause I'm a real techy kind of guy. Really regret paying the extra $$ now. The touch-screen system in my last Chrysler worked perfectly.

so my sync locked up the other day when i tried to change radio stations (common).
This has happend to me a couple of times. The first time, I took in the shop. They had it for a whole day. Thought it was fixed.

APPARENTLY NOT

It's done it again since. Makes me want to bust a cap thru the screen. don't think the warrenty would cover that tho.

Really want to drive up to the Ford home office and "discuss" my dissatisfaction with the Engineering team.
 
#80 ·
so my sync locked up the other day when i tried to change radio stations (common). i drove for 30 minutes stuck on one station with a frozen, non-responsive display. i'm used to it. at least the volume dial still works, the control on the steering wheel didn't.

i shut off the car, got out, and watched for 5 minutes as it sat there before it finally went dark.

since then all my my pre-set buttons in the radio tuning are blank. even setting a new pre-set doesn't bring back any display.

i'm hoping to get that usb drive update before i get tired of this and have to pull the plug, again.
 
#82 ·
I tried to use sync services for directions. After 10 tries throughout the first few days of ownership, the call would just end and directions would never complete the download. I tried 1 more time and finally completed the download and no directions or prompts came up so I gave up. The next 8 hours of driving had random directions to who knows where pop up at various times without a way to cancel. Finally cleared out. Don't think I'll be using that again. Way too quirky.
 
#85 ·
My MFT on my new Focus has been frozen (again) for the past 2 days. I saw on here that I am supposed to pull the fuse and replace but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to pull the fuse. Is there a tool to pull it out?
You can carefully use a pair of needle nose pliers if you have them handy or buy a dedicated fuse puller which is just a small plastic piece. Quick and easy though is if you look in one of the fuse bays under the hood, there is actually a fuse puller included and you can just use that. Be careful with the pull though because I blew the fuse when I went to re-insert them.
 
#87 ·
Sync Head Unit Location?

I have a question regarding the Sync with MyFordTouch on a new 2012 Focus. I have had prior a 2009 SEL Sedan that was killed in an accident and then a 2010 SEL Sedan that I had just traded in. On both of these cars, there was a hidden USB2 port available directly on the Sync head unit that was reachable via the passenger side dash. This was useful as it was a powered USB port and it allowed me to utilize larger size external hard drives without the need for another power source. Function was selectable via voice command.

With my new 2012 car, I cannot find the actual Sync head unit. I have looked through the forums here and have not found yet a location map as to where the actual Sync head unit is. I have the 2 USB in the center armrest configuration, but I was curious is maybe the head unit has a 3rd usb port that I can directly wire into. If anyone has details as to where the Sync head unit is located in the car with this model year, it would be appreciated as I'm not looking to want to tear through the dash unless I have to.
 
#88 ·
I have a question regarding the Sync with MyFordTouch on a new 2012 Focus. I have had prior a 2009 SEL Sedan that was killed in an accident and then a 2010 SEL Sedan that I had just traded in. On both of these cars, there was a hidden USB2 port available directly on the Sync head unit that was reachable via the passenger side dash. This was useful as it was a powered USB port and it allowed me to utilize larger size external hard drives without the need for another power source. Function was selectable via voice command.

With my new 2012 car, I cannot find the actual Sync head unit. I have looked through the forums here and have not found yet a location map as to where the actual Sync head unit is. I have the 2 USB in the center armrest configuration, but I was curious is maybe the head unit has a 3rd usb port that I can directly wire into. If anyone has details as to where the Sync head unit is located in the car with this model year, it would be appreciated as I'm not looking to want to tear through the dash unless I have to.
Found the answer to my question. Please disregard post.
 
#96 ·
Is it possible to respond to a text message via voice?
Thanks.
You're not able to reply with a personal message. However, there are canned messages stored within the system that can be used:

Can’t talk right now
Call me
Where are you?
I need more directions
Thanks
I’m stuck in traffic
Can’t wait to see you
B there in 10 minutes
B there in 20 minutes
I love you
Too funny
Yes
Call U later
No
Why?

*Note: This is a speed dependent feature. The vehicle must be moving less than 3 mph (4.82 km/h) to use this feature.

Let me know if you need addition help with this :)

Does anyone know how to use the Sync Applink?
SYNC AppLink is not available on the Focus at this time. However, you can still listen to Pandora, iHeartRadio, or NPR news. You're just not able to give voice commands for it at this time.

Hey, I have a 2012 Focus SEL and I'm having a horrible time trying to hook up my Iphone 4s to SYNC. when it searches for a phone my Iphone doesn't recognize any bluetooth devices. What am I doing wrong?
I can help with pairing your phone. Is your Focus equipped with MyFord Touch?

Jaclyn
 
#95 ·
Hey, I have a 2012 Focus SEL and I'm having a horrible time trying to hook up my Iphone 4s to SYNC. when it searches for a phone my Iphone doesn't recognize any bluetooth devices. What am I doing wrong?
 
#98 ·
#100 ·
My question isn't as complex as the other ones, thank God. First, nice to have read all the helpful posts that most of you are sharing here on the forums. It's nice to have that bank of questions and answers. I picked up my 2012 Focus SE 203A five speed two weeks ago, and I absolutely love driving this thing. Two weeks, little over 500 miles due to just random driving. It's a blast to drive.

My question is simple. I have a Droid Bionic through Verizon, and I'm trying to get the Google Maps to read the bluetooth navigation through the speakers. When the phone is not paired through Sync, the navigation will verbally tell me where to go. When is it paired through Sync, there's no verbal read out. Any way to get Google Maps to read the directions through bluetooth?

If there's no solution to this, I can live with it. Just curious if anyone else has had the same problems. Also, How does the Sync Navigation work? Does it take long for the bluetooth to download the directions? Is the call constantly on? The last thing I want to do is run up my minutes because Sync has to stay connected to a phone call.
 
#101 ·
^ When your Android phone is paired with a Bluetooth audio device, all audio is sent over Bluetooth. What this means is your nav instructions are sent over Bluetooth instead of playing through the internal speaker. So, if you use Bluetooth audio to listen to music on your phone, you will get the prompts. [thumb]

That's how my HTC Sensation 4G works, anyway.. I presume all devices should work that way.

Congrats on the new ride, btw. I broke 200 miles since Thursday earlier. :)
 
#102 ·
I have one rhing to add to that. Right now I have ny phone synced up, but I deactivated "media" to be sent through the car. When it was activate, the prompts were not sent through the speakers.

Basically you're saying that if you can hear music through bluetooth there should be no reason not to have the prompts.
 
#105 ·
Dealership did our SYNC update as part of some sort of recall. The screen looks a little different now. The biggest complaint is thet the Sirius stations no longer display the title and artist. Is there a setting I'm missing?
 
#106 ·
Yea ... they left the Song&Artist info out of the homescreen (very disappointing) but if your on the entertainment (sirius screen) they should appear. Make sure your not in Direct Tune mode. Turn off Direct Tune if so, it works like a toggle switch.

Also see if the HD radio no longer shows Song & Artist info when on entertainment screen. I was checking out a demo last weekend with v3 MFT and didn't see any song&artist info when listening to HD channels. In fact I didn't even see any HD1 or HD2 channels at all. Did they do away with the HD radio all together or just the info? It really sucks they deleted so many features thats why I still have my update package un-opened and plan on keeping the v2 MFT until they add the features and functionality back into the v3 system.

When I bring my car in for service I will specify not to upgrade MFT or they will have one unhappy customer demanding the v2 system I purchased be returned. I know they can't do this so I would then want a refund for the MFT package I purchased (around $850 i think).
 
#113 ·
I have a few disappointments as well, however they are not so much technical ones.

I found my car using the Ford dealer search. The car showed at my local dealer, but was in fact not there, as it was in transit so I could not see it in person.

So my "goodies" list on this car was solely based off the downloadable window sticker. Now all this SYNC and MFT stuff is new to me. I spent some time on Ford's site seeing what it was all about. On my window sticker, it reads "MYFORD & SYNC PACKAGE" and right under that it also reads "MYFORDTECH/6SPKR/SIRIUS". My impression from how this is written, was that this car had the touch screen deal. "Myford", "myfordtouch", "myfordtech"....could they make it any more confusing? It's like when you watch a movie where two of the main characters actors look very alike and you have trouble following who's who. So my car comes in and I have no big screen in the dash and I ask why and they say my car didn't have that option. I felt a little slighted on the advertising.

Another advertising beef is that I don't recall in any of the SYNC commercials that Ford makes it clear that SYNC goes through your smartphone. After the dealer spent a half hour explaining all the cool things it does, I finally ask "does this all go through my phone?". And they say yeah, you need a smart phone. I was thinking from all the commercials that this was like an OnStar type deal. What if I didn't have a smartphone? I'd have been pissed.

And the last thing, which may be my own issue because I'm not really a technofile, is that all this voice command stuff just seems WAY more complicated than just using my damn phone and ipod separately. I can plug my ipod into the aux port and choose a song on the ipod itself in about 5 seconds. Trying to do it through the USB port and using voice commands, I couldn't even get it to switch tracks in 5 minutes of trying.

I'm sure all the SYNC features are neat, and I WANT to start using them and take advantage of the system, but it just irks me that my phone does all the same stuff and yet I have to use the phone as a middleman for another system to now do it.
 
#114 ·
It will work with any phone.

Sync is the voice system.
MyFord is the entertainment system
MyFord Touch is the entertainment system with the touch screen.

Hope you have good luck with your MFT.
 
#117 ·
I've been having an issue with my 1st gen iPod touch and SYNC.

The two will cooperate fully for several hours until it freezes while playing a track. SYNC then proceeds to eject the iPod, and will not reconnect or recognize that it's even plugged into the USB port unless I reset the system (pulling fuse #67). I've tried resetting the iPod, using a different iPod cable, and I run SyncMyiTunes weekly. Nothing seems to work short of pulling the main fuse for the SYNC computer.

Any insight into this? iPod integration one of the main reasons I went with the 203A package, and this has been an extremely frustrating issue, especially on long roadtrips.
 
#118 ·
So I've run into a new issue that has existed only since I updated to MFT 3.0. Yes, I know this is the Sync thread but it's Phonebook related, which I think falls under the Sync umbrella.

Anyway, two times now the system has selectively deleted part of my phonebook. I only notice because I use a voice command to dial someone and it dials completely the wrong person (i.e. I say "Call Anne" and I hear "Calling Jennifer" back from the system) and, after much head-scratching, I finally checked the Phonebook and saw that 80% of my entries were missing. The system was on Auto Download, so I disabled that in case it was causing issues, deleted the entire phonebook, and attempted to re-download it. It didn't do so when I clicked the button, so I turned Auto Download back to On and eventually (at some point the next day while driving in the car) it re-downloaded everything. At that point, I turned Auto Download back to Off in order to prevent the system from messing with the Phonebook any more.

Fast-forward to today... I try to use voice commands to call my wife and it totally screw it up and starts dialing some random person. Check the Phonebook and magically almost all my contacts are gone - less than 10 out of 200 or so remain. It still has Auto Download set to Off. I deleted everything and, as of right now, have been unable to get it to add any contacts back to the system.

<rant>
Ignoring the fact that I'd like to smash the system into a brick wall at 70 MPH at this point (because seriously, what's the point of all this technology that's supposed to enhance safety while driving when you have to keep fiddling with it just to make a damn phone call?!?) what else can I do? The dealer just replaced the whole APIM less than a month ago for a different problem and I really shouldn't have to do yet another Master Reset. I'm getting sick and tired of none of this stuff working correctly... for a $28K car, this is ridiculous!
</rant>

Sooo... has anyone else run into problems like this?

My phone is a Moto Droid 2 Global running Android 2.3. And, again, it worked just fine for 2+ months prior to the MFT 3.0 upgrade.
 
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